More Childhood musings

The second birth:
I don’t remember too much of my mom being pregnant with my brother, but I do remember that my granny and her male servant thambi staying with us. I vaguely remember dad remarking to me that I would soon have a brother to play with in the house. I don’t know where I first saw my brother, hospital or home, but I do remember his face when I first saw him and to me it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I remember planning a lot of games and things to do with him. I remember mom and dad asking me to think of a name for him. I actually took this task very seriously and came up with some names “Pavithran, Policeman, Deepak etc” Dad and mom even today tell me that I was the one who thought of his name, well I’d like to think so. I remember the pram on which I would push my brother along. I remember his silky hair and small feet and I liked the fact that he unfailingly tightened my finger with his tiny hand every time I put it there.
Lock up:
As a kid and even today I create, think and live in my own fantasies. If I had a toy gun, then the jungle, the enemies, the wounds, the drama everything was conjured up in my fertile imagination. I used to spend hours by myself with some tools of fantasy and my imagination took over. Even today I do the same, the scale and situations vary.
I remember a small godrej (I think) almirah that I used to play a train simulation in. I used to sit inside the almirah and keep pulling the doors. I spent hours there playing out my fantasies. Once when my mom was quite pregnant with my bro, she had gone to collect the laundry from outside. I was playing in my favourite almirah, pulling and pushing the doors with much gusto, making sure that the doors don’t completely lock. As it happens with most of my mis-adventures, I pulled the doors a bit too hard and the damn thing closed on me. A 4 year old hyperactive kid in a confined dark space just reeks of utter panic. And panic I did, I screamed and pushed the doors with all my strength, so much so that the whole almirah was now rocking. Mom heard the din and was rushing as fast as her 8 months of labour allowed her. She was confronted with a daunting sight of a mid sized godrej almirah rocking on its axis and the muffled sounds of her son emanating from within it. Her dizzy spells kicked in just to add a bit more drama to an already tizzy situation. Mustering her maternal instincts, my poor mom waddled up to the almirah and yanked the handle open. Out tumbled her very suffocated, blue bundle of joy. I was apparently blue due to the lack of oxygen and all that shouting. She tells me that she remembers my very white teeth as I flashed a big grin and told her that if there was a light bulb in the almirah I wouldn’t have been so scared. Poor mom must have wondered what she had done in any of her previous births to deserve me, and must have looked with fear at her protruding belly wondering what untold mass of protoplasm was brewing inside this time.
Back to school:
Another incident I remember vividly thankfully does not involve any blood but is not short on drama and trauma value for my parents. I don’t remember who this friend was, but I think his name was pawan. One day he and I got into an argument as to whose school was bigger. I argued vehemently that mine was and he scoffed and retorted on this claim. With no closure looming on the horizon, we decided to take a look at his school and bring an end to this matter of honour. Pumped on adrenalin and fostering a deep resentment for each other, we decided to walk the distance to his school. It was a good 3-4 kms away on the main road, but distance was no barrier when it came to adolescent pride. We started off without of course informing anyone, these things never struck you at that time in life. With Lilliputian legs and strides, we made slow progress towards our destination and I remember crossing crowded roads teeming with Hyderabad traffic, going below an overbridge, and sweating it out in the hot Hyderabad sun. Meanwhile mom had realized that something was amiss as there was no pandemonium breaking out at home. She searched high and low for me and quickly concluded that I was lost. She freaked as most moms do and anxious neighbors started scrounging the neighborhood. Our hyper concerned neighbours started talking of kidnappings, which put more panic in my panic saturated mom. Dad was informed at office that his son had gone missing.
About the same time we had finished seeing his school which was locked being a holiday and obviously we couldn’t conclude whose was bigger. On our way back, a neighbour who was out on his scooter looking for us, saw me and pawan and picked us up. All during the ride back he was admonishing us for gallivanting without informing anyone. I then realized that I was in trouble and every metre being covered by the speeding scooter was a step closer to a good shouting and a painful beating. Sometimes when you expect the worst, it doesn’t happen, well this was not one of those times. Mom hugged me, slapped me and cried all in one motion. The neighbours were all thanked for their efforts. Dad yelled, mom cried some more and I was left to ponder on what was so terrible about a perfectly legitimate adventure.
Some of the stories I have heard about myself and I have heard a lot of stories about me, involve mischief to the nth degree. I was the kind of kid that would have justified infanticide. Satan was a church choir boy compared to me. I cant imagine how my parents put up with my shit, and despite that still loved me and provided for me. My mom was just 19 when she had me. If I think of the nineteen year old girl friends I knew back in college, I can’t imagine anyone taking care of a child, let alone one who made the hair on your neck stand. The mental strength it must have taken for my mom to take care of me is unimaginable. I think mom and me share such a great relationship because of the fact that we are separated by only 19 years and by the realization that many times I was one step away from being abandoned in a dumpster.